Photo: Michael Pessah
Award-winning Danish director Pernille Rose Grønkjær is promising that her new feature doc Solutions will “spike debate.” The film, which world-premieres at CPH:DOX, is based around a rendezvous in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at which leading scientists, philosophers and entrepreneurs came together to discuss nothing other than what the world needs to do to survive.
Grønkjær has been working on films in “the science field” for several years now. Her previous credits include films about genetics (Genetic Me) and deep brain stimulation (Hunting For Hedonia). “I’ve always been fascinated by intelligence,” she says of what draws her to these subjects. “In many of my films, there are people with visions, whether it’s visions about their lives or careers.”
Solutions again sees her filming in the thick of the scientific world. Through her connection with physics professor Steen Rasmussen, she was able to attend (and film) the 2018 New Mexico summit.
In the documentary, the various experts are shown tackling subjects ranging from climate change to income inequality and the threat of AI and social media.
“It was a very constructive meeting and I was optimistic,” Grønkjær remembers of the upbeat mood in Santa Fe. “After the 10 days, our minds were exploding!”
Of course, that was before the pandemic hit. Now, she argues, it is more important than ever to try to pass on “the optimism that was in that room.”
“It was complex, a huge operation, to go in and dissect these bits and pieces, these brilliant ideas and try to get cohesive story around this. There were so many ideas, so many visions,” the director recalls of what proved a daunting production and editing challenge.
In the film, Grønkjær tries to give the audience the sense that they are in a “control room, like you see in blockbuster films about war rooms…governments and ministers of state meet in these secluded areas where no-one [else] can get in. I really wanted that suspense around the film.’
“It was very important to get that feeling that you [the audience] are a part of an important conversation. You are sitting around the table with these people and you are invited in,” the director continues.
The experts were all strong-minded individuals with “big personalities.” However, Grønkjær was pleasantly surprised by how willing they were to listen to each other. They didn’t try to shout down each others’ ideas. All seemed willing to learn.
The think tank took place in the summer of 2018. Ask Grønkjær why the film has taken so long to complete and she points out that the documentary was “a hard sell” initially. When the pandemic broke, it delayed her further and she briefly asked whether she would be able to complete it at all. “It was really important for me to carry through the project,” she says of a film which she finally finished grading only a few days ago and for which a sales agent is yet to be appointed.
Her hope now is that Solutions can be used by teachers and have an educational application – and also reach audiences by more traditional means. “And of course, I would also love it to be accessible….that’s what I would love, to find a way that it could be on one of the streaming platforms.” The participants in the summit have seen the film and have given it their blessing.
Put it to Grønkjær that the scientists in Solutions are a homogenous group, with many of them white, male and middle-aged, and she acknowledges that this isn’t the most diverse gathering. “I know from Steen [Rasmussen] who put together the group that he really tried to get the gender number equal…but it is also a way of starting somewhere. These [the attendees] were the people who responded to invitations and that he knew,” she notes. “Of course, I have to say there is a little tip to the male side. I absolutely agree on that. I have to say that if you look at the film team and where the film comes from, it is a female voice.”
Solutions was made through Danish Documentary, the pioneering, female-led outfit that Grønkjær co-founded in 2007 and which has a string of international hits to its credit, among them Grønkjær’s own IDFA winner The Monastery – Mr. Vig and the Nun, Eva Mulvad’s Enemies of Happiness (Sundance and IDFA winner) and Mikala Krogh’s A Normal Life(CPH:DOX audience award).
The company has plenty of new projects in the pipeline. Grønkjær herself has a new film coming up, again in the science field. It’s called The Roulette Project but she is keeping further details to herself for the moment. She is also the executive producer of a new project by Mikala Krogh and Eva Mulvad.
“It [Danish Documentary] is built on the idea of giving liberty to directors,” Grønkjær says of the company which has carved itself out a position as one of the main players in the Danish doc scene.
